Christmas Eve, December 24, 2014 | 8:30 and 11:00 p.m.

Christmas Eve Sermon

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Isaiah 9:2–7
Luke 2:1–20

O Lord, the gift of new life, new light, can be a gift truly only if we open ourselves to receive it. So this is our prayer, Lord: Be born among us that we may ourselves be born. Be born within us that by words and deeds of love we may bear the tidings of thy birth to a world that dies for lack of love. We ask it in the child’s name. Amen.

Frederick Buechner, “Come and See," from Secrets in the Dark

I’ve been wondering . . . why are you here tonight? What has inspired you, called you perhaps, nudged you to come to worship on this particular evening?

Is it because this place is your place? If the doors of Fourth Church are open and the people are gathering, you are here. Church is a part of your family, your routine, your life. You simply cannot imagine being anywhere else on this Christmas Eve other than in this Sanctuary or in the Chapel, held within the marvelous, beautiful space, with all of us.

Or, just between you and me, are you here because you are visiting family or you are a college kid or young adult back home again and your family expected you to come with them? You did not want to start a family feud, certainly not at Christmas, so here you are. And you figure it won’t be awful. The music is always stunning, the candles at the end will be lovely, but you know, they know, you’re primarily here to keep the peace.

Or have you come to worship this evening or chosen to watch online because you grew up going to church on Christmas Eve? Perhaps worship is no longer a part of your regular weekly life, but there is just something about this night that draws you back in, fills you with good memories of Christmases past, and reminds you what used to hold meaning in your life, what once gave you a frame of reference.

Perhaps you are here because you are searching. You have a deep sense or a deep hope that there is more to life than only what you see around you, and so you have come.

And finally, I imagine some of you are in worship on this Christmas Eve because you are lonely or grieving or just feeling lost. On this night, of all nights, you need to be among people, any people, in a safe space, a holy space, a space in which you can just breathe.

Are any of these reasons why you are here in this place, or why you are watching this service, on this holy night?

For some of us, I imagine it is a mixture of several reasons rolled together and confused. Or perhaps the reason you are here has nothing to do with any of my spoken possibilities. Regardless, whatever the motivation, whatever has summoned you into this time of worship, at some level, it probably has to do with that baby. At some level, your reason for being here is intertwined with a desire to peer into the manger again. To see, again, who exactly is in that manger, and to try, again, to comprehend what that baby means for us and for our lives. Deep down, perhaps that is the real reason you are here.

It is one reason I am here. I am here to peer into the manger again. I am here to imagine that baby’s face. I am here to ponder Mary’s pain and exhaustion and joy as she pushed her firstborn child out into this world, perhaps even into Joseph’s awaiting arms. I am here to listen for, to remember, to ponder the story of God’s Love Becoming Flesh.

For I don’t know about you, but most of the time when I look around, I do not see a choir of angels singing or witness the heavens opening or hear the cries of the newborn Jesus. Most days, most times, certainly during this Advent season, when I look around, I see a world still very much shrouded by the darkness, the shadows, of which Isaiah spoke.

If darkness is meant to suggest conflicts between nations or conflicts between people in the same nation, well, I see that darkness. If darkness is meant to suggest a sense of uncertainty, apathy, cynicism, honest fear, well, I certainly see that darkness. If darkness is meant to suggest a world in which no one sees each other very well, if at all, well then, I see, I know, I feel that darkness. And so, given the sense of all that darkness, the awareness of the shroud of shadows that still feels cast over us, I find I have to be here, in this place, on this particular evening, held within the quiet beauty of mystery, with you.

I must pay attention as the Christ candle is lit again, in order to remember all the hope and possibility that simple act implies. I must hear the lessons with the story again, interspersed with the carols of my childhood and breathe in that comfort. I must hold up a candle near the end and sing “Silent Night” again, looking at your faces bathed in its light, when, for a moment, we are all being who we have been created to be. But most of all, I must peer into that manger. I need to see it, the baby Jesus’ face. I need to once again be drenched in the mystery of the incarnation, the gift of God becoming Emmanuel, God-with-us, God-for-us, forever.

For when we peer into that manger, we believe, we trust, that we don’t only see the face of the baby Jesus. When we peer into that manger, we believe, we trust, we also see the face of God. When we peer into that manger, we see the concrete reality and power of God’s love. That baby reminds us that God loves us and this world so much that God simply could not stay away. God had to come and be one of us, one with us, so that we would know once and for all that no matter how much darkness we see and how heavy the shroud feels, it shall not overcome us and it shall not last forever.

When we peer into that manger, we are reminded that we worship a God who decided to get down into the dirt with us, down into the messiness and complications of life with us. When we peer into that manger, we see that God knew we needed a God—a Savior—who had tasted the darkness firsthand.

The baby in the manger proclaims to us that because God chose flesh and blood, perhaps something might have changed in the heavens, and we now know there is nothing we can live that God has not already absorbed into God’s own heart. Because of Jesus, God knows what it is like to be born, to be pushed out into this world. Because of Jesus, God knows what it is like to be vulnerable, to be a child, to be weak in power and completely dependent on others. And because of Jesus, God also knows what it is like to grow up, to hurt and to die, to lose a beloved one, and to weep. Because of the face of the one we see when we peer in the manger, we believe, we trust, that God knows all of what it means to be human, to be creature, to be you and me.

What do we see when we peer into the manger? We see a God who is strong enough to be a baby. A God who is powerful enough to take on human weakness. A God who holds all the oceans of the world in the palm of God’s hand, but who also squirms in the straw, cries for his parents, and looks curiously at the big brown cow (Cynthia Rigby, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, lecture on “Preaching Advent”). As former Yale chaplain John Vannorsdall once proclaimed, by coming to be with us as a baby, God was declaring unilateral disarmament with humanity. Any God who comes as a baby, he preached, is a God who intends us no harm. No harm. Only life. That kind of God is what we see when we peer into the manger on this night, on every night.

So whether you are a part of worship on this Christmas Eve out of curiosity or guilt, whether you are a part of worship out of routine or a deep desire for meaning, whatever has called you to this set-apart moment, I hope you will take the time tonight to look again and to see. To peer into the manger. To imagine that baby’s face. I hope you will indeed pause and consider what it means that God did not decide to simply act from above to save us; that God did not decide to swoop in with all power and might to force us into redemption; nor did God simply decide to create us and walk away, leaving us to stew in our own brokenness and despair.

Rather, the baby in the manger proclaims to us that in Mary’s body and with her consent, God became one of us—not in theory, but in truth, so that we might know forever how God embraces us and this world, the world that God created and continues to redeem and is making new, even here and now. In the baby Jesus, God became one of us, one for us, one with us, so we would see that indeed Isaiah’s promise has come true: The light shines on in the darkness and the darkness shall never overcome it. Indeed, one day, the light will be all in all.

That proclamation is what we see when we peer into the manger this evening. That proclamation is what we celebrate and live. That proclamation is the promise that is already on the way. That proclamation is Christmas. So come, look, and be amazed. It’s God’s Love Made Flesh, for us. Amen.